Ever increasing quantities of solid waste are generated each day which presents a major collection and disposal nuisance as well as serious environmental problems. The cost of disposal of solid waste ranks amongst the costs for public schooling, highways and other general municipal expenses.
Accordingly, as society realizes that its past practices of waste disposal are contaminating its water supplies, beaches and environment in general, new solutions for waste reduction and management are becoming essential.
Regardless of a particular approach to providing solutions for waste reduction and management, there are several fundamental facts regarding the nature of waste, which should be considered in developing new practices for waste disposal. For example, some wastes such as solid organic waste can be recovered and reused or recovered and converted to energy, whereas other wastes, such as plastics, glass, metal and paper can be recovered and recycled for new uses. Such recovery and recycling typically involves processing such wastes into high grade commodities, at a materials recycling or recovery facility In general, the materials recovery facility (MRF) is a processing center where recyclables are separated and processed to maximize value and reusability.
There are on the other hand, other wastes which can be organically composted and used for landscaping or agriculture. Also, a large percentage of our waste cannot be recovered or recycled and is best processed and safely burned to generate energy and usable byproducts.
Examples of waste recovery operations are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,077,847 to Choi et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,198 to Eckhoff et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,479,581 to Kelyman, Jr.
Conventional methods of disposal such as landfill are becoming prohibitively expensive and are creating serious pollution problems Recovery and processing of recyclable material is becoming essential to our society's waste reduction and management practices.
The benefits of recycling solid waste material are unquestionable. Use of recyclable materials saves considerable energy and natural resources when compared with production of goods from materials materials. Communities participating in recycling programs share in the revenues from the sale of the recyclable materials and realize a net reduction in their solid waste disposal costs. By shredding solid organic waste, and removing ferrous metals therefrom using magnetic-based separation technology, processed refuse fuel (PRF) can be produced from solid organic waste and can thereafter be converted into electrical power (e.g. by burning in a PRF fired boiler), and sold to electric companies, thereby providing additional revenues. In addition, ferrous metals recovered from shredded solid organic waste, for example, can be sold, providing increased waste reduction and additional revenues to offset costs of disposal In short, there are numerous incentives for residents in a particular community, to want to participate in a recyclable materials recovery and recycling program.
It has been reliably estimated that 30-70% of the solid waste stream is recoverable, and that MRF's are capable of reducing the amount of solid waste to be disposed of by as much as 25%.
As with other waste disposal practices, prior art recycling and reprocessing programs have not been without problems.
Specifically, in order for any recycling program to be effective and gain wide community support, it must be convenient to participants and cost effective.
The standard programs presently being promoted require special collection bins or collection containers and separate pick up of recyclable solid waste. These programs often translate into high costs and inconvenience to residents. An original commitment to recycling weakens over time as one is required to separate as many as seven items, each requiring a separate container. The effort required is time consuming and space consuming and only appears to be successful in affluent suburbs.
In addition to requiring special collection bins, containers and separate pick up, prior art recyclable material collection programs and methodologies have been accompanied by other shortcomings and drawbacks as well.
For example, such prior art collection programs require each resident to segregate different types of recyclable materials into distinct types, such as plastics, glass, metal and paper. Consequently, this requirement burdens the community participants with inconvenience and tends to reduce the level of participation.
Also, prior art recyclable material collection programs typically require special equipment and/or additional manpower to handle the pick up of recyclable materials that have been placed in the special collection bins or containers. Notably, as a further inconvenience, the placement of these special collection bins within the community, is usually at centrally located buildings, such as near schools, public dumps, supermarkets, shopping centers and other places remote from the majority of residents who are required to use them.
There are also other types of prior art recyclable material collection programs which use separate collection bins, e.g. "Blue Bins" or Boxes, that are set out along curbside on special pickup days, and which are picked up separately from other household and/or commercial solid waste, using specially designed collection vehicles, typically supported by additional trucks and trailers to pick-up and transfer recyclables. Notably however, such programs which require separate curbside collection with rigid set-out collection bins, may suffer from numerous shortcomings and drawbacks. For example, such prior art recyclable collection programs require that consumers segregate recyclable materials from other solid waste materials which are collected by preexisting solid waste collection systems. Thus, such prior art programs require separate curbside pick-up or collection operations, necessitating separate and additional trucks, collection vehicles, and trailers to pick-up recyclables, which result in enormous labor and transportation costs above the costs of current solid waste collection systems. Moreover, in addition to being generally inefficient, the costs involved in establishing such prior art recycling programs which rely on separate curbside collection with set-out bins, may be equally as enormous as the additional labor and transportation costs of such programs. These separation and collection costs are significantly greater than the value of the materials recovered and therefore large public subsidies are required to make these programs work.
In general, these prior art methods for collecting recyclable materials require extensive supervision, and equipment maintenance, and such prior art collection programs suffer from other drawbacks as well. For example, the special collection bins or containers required by such prior art recyclable material collection programs, are often stolen and the recyclable material placed therein is typically spilled onto the streets and the lawns of the community.
In short, prior art programs for collecting recyclable material involve costly and separate collection of recyclable materials and therefore discourage high levels of participation among residents of the communities who have been asked to participate in such programs. As a result, such recyclable collection programs have been for the most part, unsuccessful in carrying out sought after solid waste recovery and processing goals.
Accordingly, there is great need for improved methods of and apparatus for collecting recyclable materials, for subsequent recycling at recyclable material recovery facilities. Therefore, it is the primary object of the present invention to provide a novel alternative to prior art methodologies for collecting recyclable materials, and also, solid waste collection programs based thereon.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide apparatus useful in carrying out the method of the present invention. In particular, a lightweight flexible receptacle is provided, having a rugged construction sufficient to withstand the forces experienced during curbside pick-up, compaction, transfer and dumping operations. The flexible receptacle is designed for residents to place all unsegregated recyclable materials thereinto, and to then set the flexible receptacle at the curbside with other bagged trash, for collection by public or private collection trucks. Alternatively, the filled flexible receptacle can be dropped into collection containers at a local landfill or transfer station.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such a flexible receptacle in the form of a bag made of a lightweight, durable, fully recyclable, woven plastic and having a bright color for example orange, which may bear a source identification code on the exterior surfaces thereof for identifying the source of the recyclable material placed in the flexible bag.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method of collecting recyclable materials for recycling at a recyclable material recovery facility, wherein each flexible receptacle could be individually weighed, the weight thereof recorded, and a source identification code read to identify the source of recyclable material placed in each flexible receptacle. By this process, the identified source, i.e., the community from which the measured recyclable material was collected, could be given credit in an accounting subsystem maintained in the material recovery and processing system.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such flexible receptacles in the form of plastic bags, which are made from a fully recyclable woven plastic. Such bags have shown a plus 95% bag survival rate in testing under the actual conditions using compactor-type refuse collection trucks.
A further object of the present invention is to provide other apparatus for carrying out the method of the present invention.
These and other objects of the present invention will be explained hereinafter, and will be more particularly delineated in the claims, and other objects of the present invention will hereinafter be apparent to those with ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains.